BR Adjusts Service/Schedule Due to Coronavirus Outbreak
 

Due to the growing epidemic of the Wuhan Coronavirus, BR is implementing policies and procedures to prevent the spread and infection onboard their aircraft.

Effective immediately:

• Flight attendants are permitted to wear face masks
• Aircraft disinfection will be done once a week
• Pest/Disinfectant cans will be sprayed pre/post flight, each flight
• If you declare to the FA you have a fever/symptoms, you will be immediately met by authorities upon landing to be checked on/quarantined

The airline is continuing to monitor developments of the illness and route adjustments may be made. BR does not serve Wuhan, but does serve other cities the infection has spread to.

Link on EVA website on allowable ticket changes on flights from/to Mainland China / Hong Kong and Macao before 29FEB2020 due to Wuhan Sickness https://www.evaair.com/en-global/abo...ronavirus.html

I was looking at this and am interested in this part of the offer:. Eligibility

For passengers holding BR/B7 tickets issued on/before 24JAN2020 with confirmed bookings on BR/B7 cross-strait and international flights with connecting flights from/to Mainland China / Hong Kong and Macao before 29FEB2020.
and
5. Refund:
A. Refund rule and charge will be waived.
B. For tickets purchased from EVA AIR official website, please submit a refund through EVA Air website or contact EVA AIR reservation and ticketing offices.


Does that mean that if I hold an economy ticket TPE-MFM flight (no other flights or connections to this one), that I can cancel for full refund?

If your flight was booked before 1.24.2020 for travel on or before 29FEB2020, you qualify for a full refund. They will waive all the normal refund/processing charges.

Thanks, very much appreciate it. It's for Feb 26 to 29th, so I just squeaked into the right dates.

Eva Air is now making N95 masks available to passengers on all flights to and from Mainland/Macau/HK. FA's are now required to wear masks during flight and gloves when collecting meals. All staff overnights in China/HK have been cancelled and flights requiring an overnight are now being double crewed. All employee travel (and employee tickets) to China/HK/Macau are suspended until further notice.

The following service changes will be implemented onboard flights to China/HK/Macau:

• No table cloths in J
• No menus in all cabins
• No hot towels in J
• All napkins provided are one-time use (no cloth napkins in J)
• All hot meals discontinued (including J)
• Paper bag meals (sandwich, cold pastry etc.) will be served in place with one-time use utensils and serving apparatus
• All special meals except Veg. cancelled/not provided
• No glassware of any kind, all drinks will be served in plastic cups
• Pillows and blankets will only be provided on request (extremely limited supply, will be immediately bagged for cleaning after use)
• No newspapers, magazines, or inflight reading is available
• Duty free will only be given if you preorder
• Headrest covers, headsets will be one-time use
• Air sickness bags only provided on request.
• Safety cards will be replaced in TPE every roundtrip.
• Sanitation of flight after each leg (except departure delays due to the lengthened on-ground time)
• Sanitizer available onboard
• Staffing reduced to minimum required to reduce FA exposure

BR has cancelled all China flights (except SHA) out of TSA and RMQ effective immediately. Starting 2/1, the airline is cancelling more than 200 flights to/from China/HK/Macau. BR is reporting single-digit passenger numbers on some flights.
https://booking.evaair.com/flyeva/EV...ime=&ACTCODE=X

I booked a ticket JFK-TPE-CTS in Feb a while ago and I am holding a Chinese passport. I read somewhere that the new policy prohibits passenger holding Chinese passport (no matter where do you live) entering Taiwan. Does anyone know if I am allowed to transfer at TPE (connection time is about 3 hrs, do now plan to leave the international terminal), or should I cancel the ticket and looking for alternative.

https://www.chinatimes.com/realtimen...3-260410?chdtv

Looks like MXP might be affected. Personally, I think this is all just political, but what do I know...

Let's see if other countries follow suit.

We're supposed to fly USA>TPE>CTS (and return) this month.
The fact that BR has not yet suspended all services to the Mainland has me very concerned.
If you're following the coronavirus story, it is now known that an infected asymptomatic person can transmit the virus and that it can take up to 2 weeks for the infection to become symptomatic.
Any flight with connecting pax originating with Mainland carries some level of risk. An asymptomatic carrier could easily infect others in the cabin.

My questions are as follows:
- Generally speaking, how much of BR's TPAC pax are those originating/transiting from Mainland?
- I don't know if there are any political or philosophical factors involved, but why hasn't EVA announced suspension of all China flights yet and could you see that happening over the next week?
- Juneyao and Air China are Star. How much traffic do those carriers feed EVA's TPAC flights?

Chinese citizens are not allowed to transit in TPE. They can fly to USA via ICN or NRT but not TPE due to political reasons.

You can check how EVA cleans the cabin after each China service. (https://www.evaair.com/en-us/about-e...-2019nCoV.html). EVA also has cut many China flights.

You seem to be worried about taking EVA to CTS. Are you sure Japan is safe? There are already 20 2019-nCoV cases in Japan. Japan has the most cases outside of China so far.

Okay it helps that Chinese citizens aren't allowed to transit via TPE. Has it always been this way, or is it just since the outbreak?
And if it's always been this way, then China-TPE flights are pretty much strictly O&D?

I'm not any more worried the virus in Taiwan or Jpn than I am about it in US. Jpn may have 2x as many cases as Taiwan, but it's also got 5x the population. And to me, 20 cases in an entire country is no different than another country with 10 cases. They're both very small %, but either way we don't know what to expect going forward.
What I am worried about is being in the same aircraft as multiple pax coming from China, whether/not they have symptoms.

It's been like this for awhile, as far transit Chinese. Most the transit passengers are ethnic Chinese with USA or other passports. In Taiwan so far, most of the current cases are Taiwanese that visited or a resident of the Wuhan area, so since they Wuhan flights have been cancelled there should be no people from this area (where 90%+ of the people with this sickness is from). Most Chinese passport holders will fly Chinese airlines which still have flights as of today to Sapporo ( 8 arrivals today/ 12 scheduled)

I would like to clarify one minor point. Mainland Chinese pax who originate from Chongqing (CKG), Kunming (KMG), and Nanchang (KHN) are allowed to transit in Taiwan, but a report last year indicated that https://udn.com/news/story/7241/3995820 the average number of transit pax from these airports is less than 1 person per day.

Mainland Chinese pax originates from outside of Mainland China can also transit in Taiwan. I don't think there is any restriction imposed on the Taiwanese side yet. If they are not originating out of Mainland China, there is little concern anyway.

BR's TPECKG flight seems to have been suspended for now. For KMG, BR/B7 only flies from KHH, not from TPE. BR doesn't fly to KHN.

China never really permits its citizens transit through Taiwan (except leaving from Nanchang, Chongqing and Kunming), unless they have permanent residency in other countries.
So, before the coronavirus outbreak:
CHN->TWN->3rd Country: No travellers holding Chinese passports allowed (unless they have foreign permanent residency in which case immigration officers at certain airports such as PVG usually permit their travel).
3rd Country->TWN->CHN: In theory no, but since travellers using Chinese passports would have already arrived in China when Chinese officers found out, there are no tangible rules to prevent them from doing it, and many have been doing so.

But after the outbreak, Taiwan banned all travellers holding Chinese passports to board flights to Taiwan, so you are not likely to see any Chinese citizen on BR now. I heard some Chinese nationals were asked to leave the plane on a BR flight leaving SFO yesterday. But as others have mentioned, it seems that non-Chinese (including Taiwanese and other nationalities) can still travel from CHN to TWN (and onward), you still have a chance to encounter someone who uses TPE as a stopover when they just arrive from China. They just won't be Chinese national though.

In general, I think the risks/chances is much lower than ICN and NRT but higher than SIN, since the former don't have any such comprehensive ban yet while the latter does (already banning all travellers, even transit passengers, who have been in China within 14 days prior to travel).

Yet, to be honest, you might want to closely monitor the situation. Japan seems to be much less alert than Taiwan this time. Japan was not affected by the SARS outbreak back in 2003 while Taiwan did suffer a lot of economic losses. There had been many Chinese visitors in Japan during the Lunar New Year holiday last week. You should keep an eye on how it develops in Japan and might want to make changes to your plan accordingly.

I can't find any official documents in English yet, but here is a list in Chinese language of who is allowed to enter Taiwan in this period of virus outbreak. The vast majority types of visas are banned/revoked except immediate family member renuion or very limited types of business visas. I admit there is a slight grey area as it doesn't imply returning Chinese citizens using TPE as a mere transit stop, but what I have learned from a Chinese American WeChat group is that there were Chinese nationals asked to deplane on a TPE-bound BR at SFO. I would assume it was a last-minute decision by BR staff that they should interpret the Taiwanese policy as not allowing anyone holding Chinese passports to fly. I don't have any official statements/documents, however.

Update:
Just read this post on a Chinese equivalent of Flyertalk: the OP is Chinese passport holder who lives in Japan and wanted to fly CI from KIX to KUL. S/he contacted CI offices in Taipei and Tokyo and was told by both that Taiwan has also banned transit.

I personally think that if you are this worried, you should cancel the trip instead of questioning why BR has not cancelled all the Mainland operations. You are going to be worried every time you see someone coughing or sneezing and that does not make a good trip.